Apparently this blog has been doing something right! But you knew that because you kept coming back.
One of the characteristics of a successful blog is, they say, that it involves your readers with each other. A good weblog is not about the writer as much as it’s about the readers.
I have to say that’s not something I expected when I started this thing. I figured, “I’ll be turning out mini essays five times a week, snarking around with stupid questions like If a fly drowns in holy water, does that make it a martyr? and that’ll be it.” I’d read blogs, but I never really dissected them. I hoped for comments, and I loved getting them, but I didn’t think of them as terribly important.
What the article states more explicitly is that a good blog forms a community of its readers. I’d noticed that some time ago, that some posts tend to get a lot of comments and that the most successful posts involve you guys talking to each other.
I can’t call what we have here a community, per se. But I’d like to think that when readers take the time to comment, they’re investing a bit of themselves in whatever question I asked or whatever situation I recounted, and that they’re carrying something away with them after they navigate to their next blog of the day.
Over time, the regulars get to know one another, and everyone begins to feel familiar. New readers feel comfortable to jump right in. And while that’s going on, I keep doing my six (I’ve upgraded from five) mini-essays a week to keep the party going.
One person has said he reads here because of the comments, that the sheer number of commented posts told him there was life in this corner of the internet.
So hey — thank you all! Thank you for making this blog a friendly, silly, thought-provoking place to be.
It’s a good combination of friendly and silly too. There’s another blog I started reading because of the comments, but they were so fractious and filled with venom that now I only read the posts and rarely the comments.
Philangelus is on my blog reader, but I click through almost every time because the tone of the comments is so friendly, fun, speculative and warm that I look forward to seeing what others have written (there’s the occasional exception, of course). And when I’m the first one here (like today) I find myself coming back the next day to check for more responses.
I think that’s more rare on the blogosphere – that the blogs with the most comments often get there by being controversial or partisan. It’s nice to see that isn’t necessary.
Thank you for commenting, because I was thinking of the irony that a post about comments would garner none. 🙂
You make a good point, that it shouldn’t take controversy to stir up conversation. There have been plenty of disagreements in the comment box, but debating and arguing don’t have to be the same thing, and certainly it can be done with respect.
Thanks!
Way down on the right is the feed for the comments.
http://philangelus.wordpress.com/comments/feed/
I get Philangelus comments goodness every four hours!
Your blog is something I read every day…not only because I like you and consider you a friend. You make me think. I dont agree with everything, but you emotionally affect me. Good stuff.
I’m sad to see you living in such a false sense of security. You don’t seem to realise that our secret plan is to get to know each other well enough so we can go off and form a discussion group of our own. Then we won’t need you!
That would make me very sad indeed. 🙁
I just want you to know how much I respect and admire you!
My only concern is that there isn’t enough Cow Bell here. Can that be remedied?
😉
Jason Block said everything I wanted to say.
I like how it’s a good mix of people who know more than I do about a field that intrigues me (but not enough to wade through a proper study), and there are so many perspectives.